Tesla's biggest problem will be mass production. (They have made about 300 cars) Large companies like Chevy can have significantly greater production capacity.
Has Tesla even considered outsourcing the manufacturing? I'm sure lots of people in Detroit would be more than grateful to be paid to make cars that are already sold. I wonder if capacity is not the problem, but that the Roadsters just take that long to actually make.
They've not just considered outsourcing the manufacturing, they did it from the start. Lotus makes the cars in England.
According to Wikipedia: "The car is assembled at the Lotus factory in Hethel, England, with drivetrain components and body components supplied to the factory by Tesla. . . Tesla Motors' plant in Taiwan manufactures the motors and the Energy Storage Systems (ESS) was initially manufactured in Thailand during development and then moved to San Carlos, California, after production started. Chassis are manufactured in Norway. SOTIRA, in St. Meloir & Pouancé, France, create the RTM carbon fiber body panels. The Roadster's brakes and airbags are made by Siemens in Germany and crash testing was conducted at Siemens as well"
Maybe, maybe not. While Tesla is an eco-exotic/luxury maker, and in general luxury companies do luxury cars which by definition are not for mass usage.To name a few: koenigseeg, aston martin, bentley, or italians like maserati or ferrari. It's hard to tell if they will ever build lower price car for mass usage lift off. Rather the way to go would be something that german Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or VW exhibit, a range of cars that have also a range of prices, but still in some sort they are considered to be almost luxury cars because of sustainable design in time, better quality (at least in most things inside or outside) and some additional level of innovation.
I'll believe that the Volt will come out first when I see it. As far as I'm concerned it's vaporware (designed to scare other people out of the market) until I can actually buy one from a local showroom.
